Creightons Creek Hall will tonight, Wednesday 29 April, host a council forum to assist fire-affected locals in rebuilding their homes. The forum will start at 5pm. Last week's forum at Ruffy saw a team from Strathbogie Shire's Community Planning Directorate meet with about 20 locals in the Ruffy Recovery Hub with great success. The one-hour forum outlines the processes for rebuilding homes destroyed by the January bushfire. It covered three pillars of the rebuilding process, which will be addressed both tonight and at other forthcoming fora, with various speakers covering statutory planning, environmental health, and municipal building surveyor obligations. Discussion on statutory planning covers the need for residents to apply for planning permits, consider farming zone requirements, as well as both the shire's bushfire management overlay and its erosion management overlay. Environmental health for those rebuilding homes will involve asbestos hazard consideration and wastewater and water tank safety. Building permits, assessment of a home's bushfire assessment level, and mandatory inspections at key stages both before and during construction will need to be undertaken before an occupancy permit can be granted. Initial feelings of being overwhelmed by the volume of processes was allayed by the high quality of the presentations that were tailored for locals to understand. Community Planning Director Rachael Frampton told this masthead that the shire had streamlined the process and was committed to work hand-in-hand with those wishing to rebuild. "Our message is simple, simply pick up the phone - we are here to help you go through this," Ms Frampton said. "All of our officers here and at the shire are there to help people through rebuilding." Ms Frampton also told the audience that council had the previous evening resolved to waive half of the fees involved and was lobbying the state government to fund a full waiver. "Council also resolved last night to reduce the red tape involved."
